Enoch Soames: A Memory of the Eighteen-Nineties
()
About this ebook
The piece was originally published in the May 1916 edition of The Century Magazine, and was later included in Beerbohm's anthology, Seven Men (1919). It is a comic tragedy, involving elements of both fantasy and science fiction; well known for its clever and humorous use of the concepts of time travel and pacts with the Devil.
The author uses a complex combination of fact and fiction to create a sense of realism. Although Mr. Soames is a fictional character, Beerbohm includes himself in the story, which he also narrates; and writes it as the reminiscences of a series of actual events which he witnessed and participated in as a younger man. The work also contains a written portrait of the real-life artist William Rothenstein, as well as countless references to contemporary-to-1897 events and places. In addition, Rothenstein actually drew the "portrait" of Soames which is mentioned in the text; although the work was probably created closer to the date of publication, than to the 1895-date given in the story. Beerbohm himself also drew a cartoon-sketch of Soames, and the two pictures are recognisably of the same "person".
Writing as a narrator describing events from his own past, Beerbohm presents himself as a moderately successful young English essayist during the 1890s. He then relates the tragic history of an older colleague named Enoch Soames. The son of a bookseller from Preston, living off an inherited annuity, he is an utterly obscure, forgettable aspiring poet in the Decadent manner. Over the course of the story, he authors three unsuccessful books, of which Beerbohm provides parodies of his book of poems, "Fungoids". Soames’ appearance is described as “dim” and leaves little impression, except for his persistent habit of always wearing a particular grey waterproof cape and soft black hat.
On the afternoon of 3 June 1897, Soames and Beerbohm are having lunch in the Soho-based "Restaurant du Vingtieme Siecle". The self-obsessed Soames is deeply depressed, consumed with the belief that he is an unrecognised great author and, despite his complete failure so far, keenly curious about his "certain" posthumous fame. He therefore agrees to a contract offered by the Devil, who introduces himself from a neighbouring table. In exchange for the possession of his soul, Soames will be transported exactly 100 years forward in time to spend the rest of the afternoon in the British Museum Reading Room and discover what judgement posterity will make on himself and his works. After the allotted time has expired, Soames will be returned to their present date and location, but at the same time of evening as his departure from the future, and the Devil will then collect his payment.
Read the complete novel for further story....
Sir Max Beerbohm
Sir Henry Maximilian "Max" Beerbohm (24 August 1872 – 20 May 1956) was an English essayist, parodist, and caricaturist under the signature Max. He first became known in the 1890s as a dandy and a humorist. He was the drama critic for the Saturday Review from 1898 until 1910, when he relocated to Rapallo, Italy. In his later years he was popular for his occasional radio broadcasts. Among his best-known works is his only novel, Zuleika Dobson, published in 1911. His caricatures, drawn usually in pen or pencil with muted watercolour tinting, are in many public collections. (Wikipedia)
Read more from Sir Max Beerbohm
Seven Men Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Works of Max Beerbohm Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA. V. Laider Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsJames Pethel Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSeven Men [Excerpts] Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsZuleika Dobson; Or, An Oxford Love Story Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEnoch Soames: A Memory of the Eighteen-Nineties Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAnd Even Now Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsYet Again Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsJames Pethel Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Happy Hypocrite: A Fairy Tale for Tired Men Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Christmas Garland Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Related to Enoch Soames
Related ebooks
Enoch Soames: a memory of the eighteen-nineties Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Seven Men [Excerpts] Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSeven Men Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Enoch Soames: A Memory of the Eighteen-Nineties Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsOR Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHieroglyphics Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Journey from this World to the Next Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMemoirs (Barnes & Noble Digital Library) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsGamiani, or Two Passionate Nights Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Mahatma and the Hare: A Dream Story Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsShe and Allan Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Nature of a Crime Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsOld Fogy His Musical Opinions and Grotesques Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Adventures of Sherlock Holmes Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lawrence Clavering Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (Annotated) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Mahatma and the Hare Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLawrence Clavering Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFingers of Fear Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Mark Twain's Speeches Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Long Arm Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Martian: A Novel Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Man of Feeling Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Petty Troubles of Married Life, Second Part Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Sherlock Holmes Mysteries Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (Mermaids Classics) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Martian Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Specimen Case Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWithout Dogma Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Short Stories For You
Explicit Content: Red Hot Stories of Hardcore Erotica Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Sex and Erotic: Hard, hot and sexy Short-Stories for Adults Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Grimm's Complete Fairy Tales Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Tales of Mystery and Imagination Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Little Birds: Erotica Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Selected Short Stories Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5100 Years of the Best American Short Stories Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas: A Story Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Things They Carried Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Sour Candy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Bradbury Stories: 100 of His Most Celebrated Tales Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Finn Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Four Past Midnight Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Hellbound Heart: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Little Shop of Hidden Treasures: a joyful and heart-warming novel you won't want to miss Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Skeleton Crew Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Ocean at the End of the Lane: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Five Tuesdays in Winter Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The ABC Murders: A Hercule Poirot Mystery: The Official Authorized Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Stories of Ray Bradbury Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Good Man Is Hard To Find And Other Stories Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Two Scorched Men Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Ficciones Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for Enoch Soames
0 ratings0 reviews
Book preview
Enoch Soames - Sir Max Beerbohm
The Project Gutenberg EBook of Enoch Soames, by Max Beerbohm
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net
Title: Enoch Soames A Memory of the Eighteen-nineties
Author: Max Beerbohm
Posting Date: July 23, 2008 [EBook #760] Release Date: December, 1996
Language: English
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ENOCH SOAMES ***
Produced by Judith Boss.
Enoch Soames
A Memory of the Eighteen-nineties
By
MAX BEERBOHM
When a book about the literature of the eighteen-nineties was given by Mr. Holbrook Jackson to the world, I looked eagerly in the index for Soames, Enoch. It was as I feared: he was not there. But everybody else was. Many writers whom I had quite forgotten, or remembered but faintly, lived again for me, they and their work, in Mr. Holbrook Jackson's pages. The book was as thorough as it was brilliantly written. And thus the omission found by me was an all the deadlier record of poor Soames's failure to impress himself on his decade.
I dare say I am the only person who noticed the omission. Soames had failed so piteously as all that! Nor is there a counterpoise in the thought that if he had had some measure of success he might have passed, like those others, out of my mind, to return only at the historian's beck. It is true that had his gifts, such as they were, been acknowledged in his lifetime, he would never have made the bargain I saw him make—that strange bargain whose results have kept him always in the foreground of my memory. But it is from those very results that the full piteousness of him glares out.
Not my compassion, however, impels me to write of him. For his sake, poor fellow, I should be inclined to keep my pen out of the ink. It is ill to deride the dead. And how can I write about Enoch Soames without making him ridiculous? Or, rather, how am I to hush up the horrid fact that he WAS ridiculous? I shall not be able to do that. Yet, sooner or later, write about him I must. You will see in due course that I have no option. And I may as well get the thing done now.
In the summer term of '93 a bolt from the blue flashed down on Oxford. It drove deep; it hurtlingly embedded itself in the soil. Dons and undergraduates stood around, rather pale, discussing nothing but it. Whence came it, this meteorite? From Paris. Its name? Will Rothenstein. Its aim? To do a series of twenty-four portraits in lithograph. These were to be published from the Bodley Head, London. The matter was urgent. Already the warden of A, and the master of B, and the Regius Professor of C had meekly sat.
Dignified and doddering old men who had never consented to sit to any one could not withstand this dynamic little stranger. He did not sue; he invited: he did not invite; he commanded. He was twenty-one years old. He wore spectacles that flashed more than any other pair ever seen. He was a wit. He was brimful of ideas. He knew Whistler. He knew Daudet and the Goncourts. He knew every one in Paris. He knew them all by heart. He was Paris in Oxford. It was whispered that, so soon as he had polished off his selection of dons, he was going to include a few undergraduates. It was a proud day for me when I—I was included. I liked Rothenstein not less than I feared him; and there arose between us a friendship that has grown ever warmer, and been more and more valued by me, with every passing year.
At the end of term he settled in, or, rather, meteoritically into, London. It was to him I owed my first knowledge of that forever-enchanting little world-in-itself, Chelsea, and my first acquaintance with Walter Sickert and other August elders who dwelt there. It was Rothenstein that took me to see, in Cambridge Street, Pimlico, a young man